The Two Babylons Alexander Hislop

Chapter VII The Two Developments Historically and Prophetically
Considered

Hitherto we have considered the
history of the Two Babylons chiefly in detail. Now we are to view them as organised
systems. The idolatrous system of the ancient Babylon assumed different phases
in different periods of its history. In the prophetic description of the modern
Babylon, there is evidently also a development of different powers at different
times. Do these two developments bear any typical relation to each other? Yes,
they do. When we bring the religious history of the ancient Babylonian Paganism
to bear on the prophetic symbols that shadow forth the organised working of
idolatry in Rome, it will be found that it casts as much light on this view
of the subject as on that which has hitherto engaged our attention. The powers
of iniquity at work in the modern Babylon are specifically described in chapters
12 and 13 of the Revelation; and they are as follows:--I. The Great Red Dragon;
II. The Beast that comes up out of the sea; III. The Beast that ascendeth out
of the earth; and IV. The Image of the Beast. In all these respects it will
be found, on inquiry, that, in regard to succession and order of development,
the Paganism of the Old Testament Babylon was the exact type of the Paganism
of the new.

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Section I
The Great Red Dragon

This formidable enemy of the truth
is particularly described in Revelation 12:3--"And there appeared another wonder
in heaven, a great red dragon." It is admitted on all hands that this is the
first grand enemy that in Gospel times assaulted the Christian Church. If the
terms in which it is described, and the deeds attributed to it, are considered,
it will be found that there is a great analogy between it and the first enemy
of all, that appeared against the ancient Church of God soon after the Flood.
The term dragon, according to the associations currently connected with it,
is somewhat apt to mislead the reader, by recalling to his mind the fabulous
dragons of the Dark Ages, equipped with wings. At the time this Divine description
was given, the term dragon had no such meaning among either profane or sacred
writers. "The dragon of the Greeks," says Pausanias, "was only a large snake";
and the context shows that this is the very case here; for what in the third
verse is called a "dragon," in the fourteenth is simply described as a "serpent."
Then the word rendered "Red" properly means "Fiery"; so that the "Red Dragon"
signifies the "Fiery Serpent" or "Serpent of Fire." Exactly so does it appear
to have been in the first form of idolatry, that, under the patronage of Nimrod,
appeared in the ancient world. The "Serpent of Fire" in the plains of Shinar
seems to have been the grand object of worship. There is the strongest evidence
that apostacy among the sons of Noah began in fire-worship, and that in connection
with the symbol of the serpent.

We have seen already, on different
occasions, that fire was worshipped as the enlightener and the purifier. Now,
it was thus at the very beginning; for Nimrod is singled out by the voice of
antiquity as commencing this fire-worship. The identity of Nimrod and Ninus
has already been proved; and under the name of Ninus, also, he is represented
as originating the same practice. In a fragment of Apollodorus it is said that
"Ninus taught the Assyrians to worship fire." The sun, as the great source of
light and heat, was worshipped under the name of Baal. Now, the fact that the
sun, under that name, was worshipped in the earliest ages of the world, shows
the audacious character of these first beginnings of apostacy. Men have spoken
as if the worship of the sun and of the heavenly bodies was a very excusable
thing, into which the human race might very readily and very innocently fall.
But how stands the fact? According to the primitive language of mankind, the
sun was called "Shemesh"--that is, "the Servant"--that name, no doubt, being
divinely given, to keep the world in mind of the great truth that, however glorious
was the orb of day, it was, after all, the appointed Minister of the bounty
of the great unseen Creator to His creatures upon earth. Men knew this, and
yet with the full knowledge of it, they put the servant in the place of the
Master; and called the sun Baal--that is, the Lord--and worshipped him accordingly.
What a meaning, then, in the saying of Paul, that, "when they knew God, they
glorified Him not as God"; but "changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped
and served the creature more than the Creator, who is God over all, blessed
for ever." The beginning, then, of sun-worship, and of the worship of the host
of heaven, was a sin against the light--a presumptuous, heaven-daring sin. As
the sun in the heavens was the great object of worship, so fire was worshipped
as its earthly representative. To this primeval fire-worship Vitruvius alludes
when he says that "men were first formed into states and communities by meeting
around fires." And this is exactly in conformity with what we have already seen
in regard to Phoroneus, whom we have identified with Nimrod, that while he was
said to be the "inventor of fire," he was also regarded as the first that "gathered
mankind into communities."

Along with the sun, as the great
fire-god, and, in due time, identified with him, was the serpent worshipped.
"In the mythology of the primitive world," says Owen, "the serpent is universally
the symbol of the sun." In Egypt, one of the commonest symbols of the sun, or
sun-god, is a disc with a serpent around it. The original reason of that identification
seems just to have been that, as the sun was the great enlightener of the physical
world, so the serpent was held to have been the great enlightener of the spiritual,
by giving mankind the "knowledge of good and evil." This, of course, implies
tremendous depravity on the part of the ring-leaders in such a system, considering
the period when it began; but such appears to have been the real meaning of
the identification. At all events, we have evidence, both Scriptural and profane,
for the fact, that the worship of the serpent began side by side with the worship
of fire and the sun. The inspired statement of Paul seems decisive on the subject.
It was, he says, "when men knew God, but glorified Him not as God," that they
changed the glory of God, not only into an image made like to corruptible man,
but into the likeness of "creeping things"--that is, of serpents (Rom 1:23).
With this profane history exactly coincides. Of profane writers, Sanchuniathon,
the Phoenician, who is believed to have lived about the time of Joshua, says--"Thoth
first attributed something of the divine nature to the serpent and the serpent
tribe, in which he was followed by the Phoenicians and Egyptians. For this animal
was esteemed by him to be the most spiritual of all the reptiles, and of a FIERY
nature, inasmuch as it exhibits an incredible celerity, moving by its spirit,
without either hands or feet...Moreover, it is long-lived, and has the quality
of RENEWING ITS YOUTH...as Thoth has laid down in the sacred books; upon which
accounts this animal is introduced in the sacred rites and Mysteries."

Now, Thoth, it will be remembered,
was the counsellor of Thamus, that is, Nimrod. From this statement, then, we
are led to the conclusion that serpent-worship was a part of the primeval apostacy
of Nimrod. The "FIERY NATURE" of the serpent, alluded to in the above extract,
is continually celebrated by the heathen poets. Thus Virgil, "availing himself,"
as the author of Pompeii remarks, "of the divine nature attributed to serpents,"
describes the sacred serpent that came from the tomb of Anchises, when his son
Aeneas had been sacrificing before it, in such terms as illustrate at once the
language of the Phoenician, and the "Fiery Serpent" of the passage before us:--

"Scarce had he finished, when, with
speckled pride,
A serpent from the tomb began to glide;
His hugy bulk on seven high volumes rolled,
Blue was his breadth of back, but streaked with scaly gold.
Thus, riding on his curls, he seemed to pass
A rolling fire along, and singe the grass."

It is not wonderful, then, the fire-worship
and serpent-worship should be conjoined. The serpent, also, as "renewing its
youth" every year, was plausibly represented to those who wished an excuse for
idolatry as a meet emblem of the sun, the great regenerator, who every year
regenerates and renews the face of nature, and who, when deified, was worshipped
as the grand Regenerator of the souls of men.

In the chapter under consideration,
the "great fiery serpent" is represented with all the emblems of royalty. All
its heads are encircled with "crowns or diadems"; and so in Egypt, the serpent
of fire, or serpent of the sun, in Greek was called the Basilisk, that is, the
"royal serpent," to identify it with Moloch, which name, while it recalls the
ideas both of fire and blood, properly signifies "the King." The Basilisk was
always, among the Egyptians, and among many nations besides, regarded as "the
very type of majesty and dominion." As such, its image was worn affixed to the
head-dress of the Egyptian monarchs; and it was not lawful for any one else
to wear it. The sun identified with this serpent was called "P'ouro," which
signifies at one "the Fire" and "the King," and from this very name the epithet
"Purros," the "Fiery," is given to the "Great seven-crowned serpent" of our
text. *

* The word Purros
in the text does not exclude the idea of "Red," for the sun-god was painted
red to identify him with Moloch, at once the god of fire and god of blood.--(WILKINSON).
The primary leading idea, however, is that of Fire.

Thus was the Sun, the Great Fire-god,
identified with the Serpent. But he had also a human representative, and that
was Tammuz, for whom the daughters of Israel lamented, in other words Nimrod.
We have already seen the identity of Nimrod and Zoroaster. Now, Zoroaster was
not only the head of the Chaldean Mysteries, but, as all admit, the head of
the fire-worshippers.(see notebelow) The title given
to Nimrod, as the first of the Babylonian kings, by Berosus, indicates the same
thing. That title is Alorus, that is, "the god of fire." As Nimrod, "the god of
fire," was Molk-Gheber, or, "the Mighty king," inasmuch as he was the first who
was called Moloch, or King, and the first who began to be "mighty" (Gheber) on
the earth, we see at once how it was that the "passing through the fire to Moloch"
originated, and how the god of fire among the Romans came to be called "Mulkiber."
*

* Commonly spelled
Mulciber (OVID, Art. Am.); but the Roman c was hard. From the epithet "Gheber,"
the Parsees, or fire-worshippers of India, are still called "Guebres."

It was only after his death, however,
that he appears to have been deified. Then, retrospectively, he was worshipped
as the child of the Sun, or the Sun incarnate. In his own life-time, however,
he set up no higher pretensions than that of being Bol-Khan, or Priest of Baal,
from which the other name of the Roman fire-god Vulcan is evidently derived.
Everything in the history of Vulcan exactly agrees with that of Nimrod. Vulcan
was "the most ugly and deformed" of all the gods. Nimrod, over all the world,
is represented with the features and complexion of a negro. Though Vulcan was
so ugly, that when he sought a wife, "all the beautiful goddesses rejected him
with horror"; yet "Destiny, the irrevocable, interposed, and pronounced the
decree, by which [Venus] the most beautiful of the goddesses, was united to
the most unsightly of the gods." So, in spite of the black and Cushite features
of Nimrod, he had for his queen Semiramis, the most beautiful of women. The
wife of Vulcan was noted for her infidelities and licentiousness; the wife of
Nimrod was the very same. * Vulcan was the head and chief of the Cyclops, that
is, "the kings of flame." **

* Nimrod, as
universal king, was Khuk-hold, "King of the world." As such, the emblem of his
power was the bull's horns. Hence the origin of the Cuckhold's horns.

** Kuclops, from Khuk, "king,"
and Lohb, "flame." The image of the great god was represented with three eyes--one
in the forehead; hence the story of the Cyclops with the one eye in the forehead.

Nimrod was the head of the fire-worshippers.
Vulcan was the forger of the thunderbolts by which such havoc was made among
the enemies of the gods. Ninus, or Nimrod, in his wars with the king of Bactria,
seems to have carried on the conflict in a similar way. From Arnobius we learn,
that when the Assyrians under Ninus made war against the Bactrians, the warfare
was waged not only by the sword and bodily strength, but by magic and by means
derived from the secret instructions of the Chaldeans. When it is known that
the historical Cyclops are, by the historian Castor, traced up to the very time
of Saturn or Belus, the first king of Babylon, and when we learn that Jupiter
(who was worshipped in the very same character as Ninus, "the child"), when
fighting against the Titans, "received from the Cyclops aid" by means of "dazzling
lightnings and thunders," we may have some pretty clear idea of the magic arts
derived from the Chaldean Mysteries, which Ninus employed against the Bactrian
king. There is evidence that, down to a late period, the priests of the Chaldean
Mysteries knew the composition of the formidable Greek fire, which burned under
water, and the secret of which has been lost; and there can be little doubt
that Nimrod, in erecting his power, availed himself of such or similar scientific
secrets, which he and his associates alone possessed.

In these, and other respects yet
to be noticed, there is an exact coincidence between Vulcan, the god of fire
of the Romans, and Nimrod, the fire-god of Babylon. In the case of the classic
Vulcan, it is only in his character of the fire-god as a physical agent that
he is popularly represented. But it was in his spiritual aspects, in cleansing
and regenerating the souls of men, that the fire-worship told most effectually
on the world. The power, the popularity, and skill of Nimrod, as well as the
seductive nature of the system itself, enabled him to spread the delusive doctrine
far and wide, as he was represented under the well-known name of Phaethon, (see note
below) as on the point of "setting the whole world on fire," or (without the poetical
metaphor) of involving all mankind in the guilt of fire-worship. The extraordinary
prevalence of the worship of the fire-god in the early ages of the world, is proved
by legends found over all the earth, and by facts in almost every clime. Thus,
in Mexico, the natives relate, that in primeval times, just after the first age,
the world was burnt up with fire. As their history, like the Egyptian, was written
in Hieroglyphics, it is plain that this must be symbolically understood. In India,
they have a legend to the very same effect, though somewhat varied in its form.
The Brahmins say that, in a very remote period of the past, one of the gods shone
with such insufferable splendour, "inflicting distress on the universe by his
effulgent beams, brighter than a thousand worlds," * that, unless another more
potent god had interposed and cut off his head, the result would have been most
disastrous.

* SKANDA PURAN,
and PADMA PURAN, apud KENNEDY'S Hindoo Mythology, p. 275. In the myth, this
divinity is represented as the fifth head of Brahma; but as this head is represented
as having gained the knowledge that made him so insufferably proud by perusing
the Vedas produced by the other four heads of Brahma, that shows that he must
have been regarded as having a distinct individuality.

In the Druidic Triads of the old
British Bards, there is distinct reference to the same event. They say that
in primeval times a "tempest of fire arose, which split the earth asunder to
the great deep," from which none escaped but "the select company shut up together
in the enclosure with the strong door," with the great "patriarch distinguished
for his integrity," that is evidently with Shem, the leader of the faithful--who
preserved their "integrity" when so many made shipwreck of faith and a good
conscience. These stories all point to one and the same period, and they show
how powerful had been this form of apostacy. The Papal purgatory and the fires
of St. John's Eve, which we have already considered, and many other fables or
practices still extant, are just so many relics of the same ancient superstition.

It will be observed, however, that
the Great Red Dragon, or Great Fiery Serpent, is represented as standing before
the Woman with the crown of twelve stars, that is, the true Church of God, "To
devour her child as soon as it should be born." Now, this is in exact accordance
with the character of the Great Head of the system of fire-worship. Nimrod,
as the representative of the devouring fire to which human victims, and especially
children, were offered in sacrifice, was regarded as the great child-devourer.
Though, at his first deification, he was set up himself as Ninus, or the child,
yet, as the first of mankind that was deified, he was, of course, the actual
father of all the Babylonian gods; and, therefore, in that character he was
afterwards universally regarded. *

* Phaethon, though
the child of the sun, is also called the Father of the gods. (LACTANTIUS, De
Falsa Religione) In Egypt, too, Vulcan was the Father of the gods. (AMMIANUS
MARCELLINUS)

As the Father of the gods, he was,
as we have seen, called Kronos; and every one knows that the classical story
of Kronos was just this, that, "he devoured his sons as soon as they were born."
Such is the analogy between type and antitype. This legend has a further and
deeper meaning; but, as applied to Nimrod, or "The Horned One," it just refers
to the fact, that, as the representative of Moloch or Baal, infants were the
most acceptable offerings at his altar. We have ample and melancholy evidence
on this subject from the records of antiquity. "The Phenicians," says Eusebius,
"every year sacrificed their beloved and only-begotten children to Kronos or
Saturn, and the Rhodians also often did the same." Diodorus Siculus states that
the Carthaginians, on one occasion, when besieged by the Sicilians, and sore
pressed, in order to rectify, as they supposed, their error in having somewhat
departed from the ancient custom of Carthage, in this respect, hastily "chose
out two hundred of the noblest of their children, and publicly sacrificed them"
to this god. There is reason to believe that the same practice obtained in our
own land in the times of the Druids. We know that they offered human sacrifices
to their bloody gods. We have evidence that they made "their children pass through
the fire to Moloch," and that makes it highly probable that they also offered
them in sacrifice; for, from Jeremiah 32:35, compared with Jeremiah 19:5, we
find that these two things were parts of one and the same system. The god whom
the Druids worshipped was Baal, as the blazing Baal-fires show, and the last-cited
passage proves that children were offered in sacrifice to Baal. When "the fruit
of the body" was thus offered, it was "for the sin of the soul." And it was
a principle of the Mosaic law, a principle no doubt derived from the patriarchal
faith, that the priest must partake of whatever was offered as a sin-offering
(Num 18:9,10). Hence, the priests of Nimrod or Baal were necessarily required
to eat of the human sacrifices; and thus it has come to pass that "Cahna-Bal,"
* the "Priest of Baal," is the established word in our own tongue for a devourer
of human flesh. **

* The word Cahna
is the emphatic form of Cahn. Cahn is "a priest," Cahna is "the priest."

** From the historian Castor (in
Armenian translation of EUSEBIUS) we learn that it was under Bel, or Belus,
that is Baal, that the Cyclops lived; and the Scholiast on Aeschylus states
that these Cyclops were the brethren of Kronos, who was also Bel or Bal, as
we have elsewhere seen. The eye in their forehead shows that originally this
name was a name of the great god; for that eye in India and Greece is found
the characteristic of the supreme divinity. The Cyclops, then, had been representatives
of that God--in other words, priests, and priests of Bel or Bal. Now, we find
that the Cyclops were well-known as cannibals, Referre ritus Cyclopum, "to
bring back the rites of the Cyclops," meaning to revive the practice of eating
human flesh. (OVID, Metam.)

Now, the ancient traditions relate
that the apostates who joined in the rebellion of Nimrod made war upon the faithful
among the sons of Noah. Power and numbers were on the side of the fire-worshippers.
But on the side of Shem and the faithful was the mighty power of God's Spirit.
Therefore many were convinced of their sin, arrested in their evil career; and
victory, as we have already seen, declared for the saints. The power of Nimrod
came to an end, * and with that, for a time, the worship of the sun, and the
fiery serpent associated with it.

* The wars of
the giants against heaven, referred to in ancient heathen writers, had primary
reference to this war against the saints; for men cannot make war upon God except
by attacking the people of God. The ancient writer Eupolemus, as quoted by Eusebius
(Praeparatio Evang.), states, that the builders of the tower of Babel were these
giants; which statement amounts nearly to the same thing as the conclusion to
which we have already come, for we have seen that the "mighty ones" of Nimrod
were "the giants" of antiquity. Epiphanius records that Nimrod was a ringleader
among these giants, and that "conspiracy, sedition, and tyranny were carried
on under him." From the very necessity of the case, the faithful must have suffered
most, as being most opposed to his ambitious and sacrilegious schemes. That
Nimrod's reign terminated in some very signal catastrophe, we have seen abundant
reason already to conclude. The following statement of Syncellus confirms the
conclusions to which we have already come as to the nature of that catastrophe;
referring to the arresting of the tower-building scheme, Syncellus (Chronographia)
proceeds thus: "But Nimrod would still obstinately stay (when most of the other
tower-builders were dispersed), and reside upon the spot; nor could he be withdrawn
from the tower, still having the command over no contemptible body of men. Upon
this, we are informed, that the tower, being beat upon by violent winds, gave
way, and by the just judgment of God, crushed him to pieces." Though this could
not be literally true, for the tower stood for many ages, yet there is a considerable
amount of tradition to the effect that the tower in which Nimrod gloried was
overthrown by wind, which gives reason to suspect that this story, when properly
understood, had a real meaning in it. Take it figuratively, and remembering
that the same word which signifies the wind signifies also the Spirit of God,
it becomes highly probable that the meaning is, that his lofty and ambitious
scheme, by which, in Scriptural language, he was seeking to "mount up to heaven,"
and "set his nest among the stars," was overthrown for a time by the Spirit
of God, as we have already concluded, and that, in that overthrow he himself
perished.

The case was exactly as stated here
in regard to the antitype (Rev 12:9): "The great dragon," or fiery serpent,
was "cast out of heaven to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him";
that is, the Head of the fire-worship, and all his associates and underlings,
were cast down from the power and glory to which they had been raised. Then
was the time when the whole gods of the classic Pantheon of Greece were fain
to flee and hide themselves from the wrath of their adversaries. Then it was,
that, in India, Indra, the king of the gods, Surya, the god of the sun, Agni,
the god of fire, and all the rabble rout of the Hindu Olympus, were driven from
heaven, wandered over the earth, or hid themselves, in forests, disconsolate,
and ready to "perish of hunger." Then it was that Phaethon, while driving the
chariot of the sun, when on the point of setting the world on fire, was smitten
by the Supreme God, and cast headlong to the earth, while his sisters, the daughters
of the sun, inconsolably lamented him, as, "the women wept for Tammuz." Then
it was, as the reader must be prepared to see, that Vulcan, or Molk-Gheber,
the classic "god of fire," was so ignominiously hurled down from heaven, as
he himself relates in Homer, speaking of the wrath of the King of Heaven, which
in this instance must mean God Most High:--

"I felt his matchless might,
Hurled headlong downwards from the ethereal height;
Tossed all the day in rapid circles round,
Nor, till the sun descended, touched the ground.
Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost.
The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast."

The lines, in which Milton refers
to this same downfall, though he gives it another application, still more beautifully
describe the greatness of the overthrow:--

"In Ausonian land
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
From heaven, they fabled. Thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements; from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and, with the setting sun,
Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star.
On Lemnos, the Aegean isle."
Paradise Lost

These words very strikingly show
the tremendous fall of Molk-Gheber, or Nimrod, "the Mighty King," when "suddenly
he was cast down from the height of his power, and was deprived at once of his
kingdom and his life." *

* The Greek poets
speak of two downfalls of Vulcan. In the one case he was cast down by Jupiter,
in the other by Juno. When Jupiter cast him down, it was for rebellion; when
Juno did so, one of the reasons specially singled out for doing so was his "malformation,"
that is, his ugliness. (HOMER'S Hymn to Apollo) How exactly does this agree
with the story of Nimrod: First he was personally cast down, when, by Divine
authority, he was slain. Then he was cast down, in effigy, by Juno, when his
image was degraded from the arms of the Queen of Heaven, to make way for the
fairer child.

Now, to this overthrow there is
very manifest allusion in the prophetic apostrophe of Isaiah to the king of
Babylon, exulting over his approaching downfall: "How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning"! The Babylonian king pretended to be a representative
of Nimrod or Phaethon; and the prophet, in these words, informs him, that, as
certainly as the god in whom he gloried had been cast down from his high estate,
so certainly should he. In the classic story, Phaethon is said to have been
consumed with lightning (and, as we shall see by-and-by, Aesculapius also died
the same death); but the lightning is a mere metaphor for the wrath of God,
under which his life and his kingdom had come to an end. When the history is
examined, and the figure stripped off, it turns out, as we have already seen,
that he was judicially slain with the sword. *

* Though Orpheus
was commonly represented as having been torn in pieces, he too was fabled to
have been killed by lightning. (PAUSANIAS, Boeotica) When Zoroaster died, he
also is said in the myth to have perished by lightning (SUIDAS); and therefore,
in accordance with that myth, he is represented as charging his countrymen to
preserve not his body, but his "ashes." The death by lightning, however, is
evidently a mere figure.

Such is the language of the prophecy,
and so exactly does it correspond with the character, and deeds, and fate of
the ancient type. How does it suit the antitype? Could the power of Pagan Imperial
Rome--that power that first persecuted the Church of Christ, that stood by its
soldiers around the tomb of the Son of God Himself, to devour Him, if it had
been possible, when He should be brought forth, as the first-begotten from the
dead, * to rule all nations--be represented by a "Fiery Serpent"?

* The birth of
the Man-child, as given above, is different from that usually given: but let
the reader consider if the view which I have taken does not meet all the requirements
of the case. I think there will be but few who will assent to the opinion of
Mr. Elliot, which in substance amounts to this, that the Man-child was Constantine
the Great, and that when Christianity, in his person sat down on the throne
of Imperial Rome, that was the fulfilment of the saying, that the child brought
forth by the woman, amid such pangs of travail, was "caught up to God and His
throne." When Constantine came to the empire, the Church indeed, as foretold
in Daniel 11:34, "was holpen with a little help"; but that was all. The Christianity
of Constantine was but of a very doubtful kind, the Pagans seeing nothing in
it to hinder but that when he died, he should be enrolled among their gods.
(EUTROPIUS) But even though it had been better, the description of the woman's
child is far too high for Constantine, or any Christian emperor that succeeded
him on the imperial throne. "The Man-child, born to rule all nations with a
rod of iron," is unequivocally Christ (see Psalms 2:9; Rev 19:15). True believers,
as one with Him in a subordinate sense, share in that honour (Rev 2:27); but
to Christ alone, properly, does that prerogative belong; and I think it must
be evident that it is His birth that is here referred to. But those who have
contended for this view have done injustice to their cause by representing this
passage as referring to His literal birth in Bethlehem. When Christ was born
in Bethlehem, no doubt Herod endeavoured to cut Him off, and Herod was a subject
of the Roman Empire. But it was not from any respect to Caesar that he did so,
but simply from fear of danger to his own dignity as King of Judea. So little
did Caesar sympathise with the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, that
it is recorded that Augustus, on hearing of it, remarked that it was "better
to be Herod's hog than to be his child." (MACROBIUS, Saturnalia) Then, even
if it were admitted that Herod's bloody attempt to cut off the infant Saviour
was symbolised by the Roman dragon, "standing ready to devour the child as soon
as it should be born," where was there anything that could correspond to the
statement that the child, to save it from that dragon, "was caught up to God
and His Throne"? The flight of Joseph and Mary with the Child into Egypt could
never answer to such language. Moreover, it is worthy of special note, that
when the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem, He was born, in a very important
sense only as "King of the Jews." "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?"
was the inquiry of the wise men that came from the East to seek Him. All His
life long, He appeared in no other character; and when He died, the inscription
on His cross ran in these terms: "This is the King of the Jews." Now, this was
no accidental thing. Paul tells us (Rom 15:8) that "Jesus Christ was a minister
of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto
the fathers." Our Lord Himself plainly declared the same thing. "I am not sent,"
said He to the Syrophoenician woman, "save to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel"; and, in sending out His disciples during His personal ministry, this
was the charge which He gave them: "Go not in the way of the Gentiles, and into
any city of the Samaritans enter ye not." It was only when He was "begotten
from the dead," and "declared to be the Son of God with power," by His victory
over the grave, that He was revealed as "the Man-child, born to rule all nations."
Then said He to His disciples, when He had risen, and was about to ascend on
high: "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth: go ye therefore, and
teach allnations." To this glorious "birth" from the tomb, and to the birth-pangs
of His Church that preceded it, our Lord Himself made distinct allusion on the
night before He was betrayed (John 16:20-22). "Verily, verily, I say unto you,
That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be
sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in
travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered
of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a MAN is born
into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again,
and your heart shall rejoice." Here the grief of the apostles, and, of course,
all the true Church that sympathised with them during the hour and power of
darkness, is compared to the pangs of a travailing woman; and their joy, when
the Saviour should see them again after His resurrection, to the joy of a mother
when safely delivered of a Man-child. Can there be a doubt, then, what the symbol
before us means, when the woman is represented as travailing in pain to be delivered
of a "Man-child, that was to rule all nations," and when it is said that that
"Man-child was caught up to God and His Throne"?

Nothing could more lucidly show
it forth. Among the lords many, and the gods many, worshipped in the imperial
city, the two grand objects of worship were the "Eternal Fire," kept perpetually
burning in the temple of Vesta, and the sacred Epidaurian Serpent. In Pagan
Rome, this fire-worship and serpent-worship were sometimes separate, sometimes
conjoined; but both occupied a pre-eminent place in Roman esteem. The fire of
Vesta was regarded as one of the grand safeguards of the empire. It was pretended
to have been brought from Troy by Aeneas, who had it confided to his care by
the shade of Hector, and was kept with the most jealous care by the Vestal virgins,
who, for their charge of it, were honoured with the highest honours. The temple
where it was kept, says Augustine, "was the most sacred and most reverenced
of all the temples of Rome." The fire that was so jealously guarded in that
temple, and on which so much was believed to depend, was regarded in the very
same light as by the old Babylonian fire-worshippers. It was looked upon as
the purifier, and in April every year, at the Palilia, or feast of Pales, both
men and cattle, for this purpose, were made to pass through the fire. The Epidaurian
snake, that the Romans worshipped along with the fire, was looked on as the
divine representation of Aesculapius, the child of the Sun. Aesculapius, whom
that sacred snake represented, was evidently, just another name for the great
Babylonian god. His fate was exactly the same as that of Phaethon. He was said
to have been smitten with lightning for raising the dead. It is evident that
this could never have been the case in a physical sense, nor could it easily
have been believed to be so. But view it in a spiritual sense, and then the
statement is just this, that he was believed to raise men who were dead in trespasses
and sins to newness of life. Now, this was exactly what Phaethon was pretending
to do, when he was smitten for setting the world on fire. In the Babylonian
system there was a symbolical death, that all the initiated had to pass through,
before they got the new life which was implied in regeneration, and that just
to declare that they had passed from death unto life. As the passing through
the fire was both a purgation from sin and the means of regeneration, so it
was also for raising the dead that Phaethon was smitten. Then, as Aesculapius
was the child of the Sun, so was Phaethon. *

* The birth of
Aesculapius in the myth was just the same as that of Bacchus. His mother was
consumed by lightning, and the infant was rescued from the lightning that consumed
her, as Bacchus was snatched from the flames that burnt up his mother.--LEMPRIERE

To symbolise this relationship,
the head of the image of Aesculapius was generally encircled with rays. The
Pope thus encircles the heads of the pretended images of Christ; but the real
source of these irradiations is patent to all acquainted either with the literature
or the art of Rome. Thus speaks Virgil of Latinus:--

"And now, in pomp, the peaceful
kings appear,
Four steeds the chariot of Latinus bear,
Twelve golden beams around his temples play,
To mark his lineage from the god of day."

The "golden beams" around the head
of Aesculapius were intended to mark the same, to point him out as the child
of the Sun, or the Sun incarnate. The "golden beams" around the heads of pictures
and images called by the name of Christ, were intended to show the Pagans that
they might safely worship them, as the images of their well-known divinities,
though called by a different name. Now Aesculapius, in a time of deadly pestilence,
had been invited from Epidaurus to Rome. The god, under the form of a larger
serpent, entered the ship that was sent to convey him to Rome, and having safely
arrived in the Tiber, was solemnly inaugurated as the guardian god of the Romans.
From that time forth, in private as well as in public, the worship of the Epidaurian
snake, the serpent that represented the Sun-divinity incarnate, in other words,
the "Serpent of Fire," became nearly universal. In almost every house the sacred
serpent, which was a harmless sort, was to be found. "These serpents nestled
about the domestic altars," says the author of Pompeii, "and came out, like
dogs or cats, to be patted by the visitors, and beg for something to eat. Nay,
at table, if we may build upon insulated passages, they crept about the cups
of the guests, and, in hot weather, ladies would use them as live boas, and
twist them round their necks for the sake of coolness...These sacred animals
made war on the rats and mice, and thus kept down one species of vermin; but
as they bore a charmed life, and no one laid violent hands on them, they multiplied
so fast, that, like the monkeys of Benares, they became an intolerable nuisance.
The frequent fires at Rome were the only things that kept them under." Some
pictures represent Roman fire-worship and serpent-worship at once separate and
conjoined. The reason of the double representation of the god I cannot here
enter into, but it must be evident, from the words of Virgil already quoted,
that the figures having their heads encircled with rays, represent the fire-god,
or Sun-divinity; and what is worthy of special note is, that these fire-gods
are black, * the colour thereby identifying them with the Ethiopian or black
Phaethon; while, as the author of Pompeii himself admits, these same black fire-gods
are represented by two huge serpents.

* "All the faces
in his (MAZOIS') engraving are quite black." (Pompeii) In India, the infant
Crishna (emphatically the black god), in the arms of the goddess Devaki, is
represented with the woolly hair and marked features of the Negro or African
race.

Now, if this worship of the sacred
serpent of the Sun, the great fire-god, was so universal in Rome, what symbol
could more graphically portray the idolatrous power of Pagan Imperial Rome than
the "Great Fiery Serpent"? No doubt it was to set forth this very thing that
the Imperial standard itself--the standard of the Pagan Emperor of Rome, as
Pontifex Maximus, Head of the great system of fire-worship and serpent-worship--was
a serpent elevated on a lofty pole, and so coloured, as to exhibit it as a recognised
symbol of fire-worship. (see note
below)

As Christianity spread in the Roman
Empire, the powers of light and darkness came into collision (Rev 12:7,8): "Michael
and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the
great dragon was cast out;...he was cast out into the earth, and his angels
were cast out with him." The "great serpent of fire" was cast out, when, by
the decree of Gratian, Paganism throughout the Roman empire was abolished--when
the fires of Vesta were extinguished, and the revenues of the Vestal virgins
were confiscated--when the Roman Emperor (who though for more than a century
and a half a professor of Christianity, had been "Pontifex Maximus," the very
head of the idolatry of Rome, and as such, on high occasions, appearing invested
with all the idolatrous insignia of Paganism), through force of conscience abolished
his own office. While Nimrod was personally and literally slain by the sword,
it was through the sword of the Spirit that Shem overcame the system of fire-worship,
and so bowed the hearts of men, as to cause it for a time to be utterly extinguished.
In like manner did the Dragon of fire, in the Roman Empire, receive a deadly
wound from a sword, and that the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
There is thus far an exact analogy between the type and the antitype.

But not only is there this analogy.
It turns out, when the records of history are searched to the bottom, that when
the head of the Pagan idolatry of Rome was slain with the sword by the extinction
of the office of Pontifex Maximus, the last Roman Pontifex Maximus was the ACTUAL,
LEGITIMATE, SOLE REPRESENTATIVE OF NIMROD and his idolatrous system then existing.
To make this clear, a brief glance at the Roman history is necessary. In common
with all the earth, Rome at a very early prehistoric period, had drunk deep
of Babylon's "golden cup." But above and beyond all other nations, it had had
a connection with the idolatry of Babylon that put it in a position peculiar
and alone. Long before the days of Romulus, a representative of the Babylonian
Messiah, called by his name, had fixed his temple as a god, and his palace as
a king, on one of those very heights which came to be included within the walls
of that city which Remus and his brother were destined to found. On the Capitoline
hill, so famed in after-days as the great high place of Roman worship, Saturnia,
or the city of Saturn, the great Chaldean god, had in the days of dim and distant
antiquity been erected. Some revolution had then taken place--the graven images
of Babylon had been abolished--the erecting of any idol had been sternly prohibited,
* and when the twin founders of the now world-renowned city reared its humble
walls, the city and the palace of their Babylonian predecessor had long lain
in ruins.

* PLUTARCH (in
Hist. Numoe) states, that Numa forbade the making of images, and that for 170
years after the founding of Rome, no images were allowed in the Roman temples.

The ruined state of this sacred
city, even in the remote age of Evander, is alluded to by Virgil. Referring
to the time when Aeneas is said to have visited that ancient Italian king, thus
he speaks:--

"Then saw two heaps of ruins; once
they stood
Two stately towns on either side the flood;
Saturnia and Janicula's remains;
And either place the founder's name retains."

The deadly wound, however, thus
given to the Chaldean system, was destined to be healed. A colony of Etruscans,
earnestly attached to the Chaldean idolatry, had migrated, some say from Asia
Minor, others from Greece, and settled in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome.
They were ultimately incorporated in the Roman state, but long before this political
union took place they exercised the most powerful influence on the religion
of the Romans. From the very first their skill in augury, soothsaying, and all
science, real or pretended, that the augurs or soothsayers monopolised, made
the Romans look up to them with respect. It is admitted on all hands that the
Romans derived their knowledge of augury, which occupied so prominent a place
in every public transaction in which they engaged, chiefly from the Tuscans,
that is, the people of Etruria, and at first none but natives of that country
were permitted to exercise the office of a Haruspex, which had respect to all
the rites essentially involved in sacrifice. Wars and disputes arose between
Rome and the Etruscans; but still the highest of the noble youths of Rome were
sent to Etruria to be instructed in the sacred science which flourished there.
The consequence was, that under the influence of men whose minds were moulded
by those who clung to the ancient idol-worship, the Romans were brought back
again to much of that idolatry which they had formerly repudiated and cast off.
Though Numa, therefore, in setting up his religious system, so far deferred
to the prevailing feeling of his day and forbade image-worship, yet in consequence
of the alliance subsisting between Rome and Etruria in sacred things, matters
were put in train for the ultimate subversion of that prohibition. The college
of Pontiffs, of which he laid the foundation, in process of time came to be
substantially an Etruscan college, and the Sovereign Pontiff that presided over
that college, and that controlled all the public and private religious rites
of the Roman people in all essential respects, became in spirit and in practice
an Etruscan Pontiff.

Still the Sovereign
Pontiff of Rome, even after the Etruscan idolatry was absorbed into the Roman
system, was only an offshoot from the grand original Babylonian system. He was
a devoted worshipper of the Babylonian god; but he was not the legitimate representative
of that God. The true legitimate Babylonian Pontiff had his seat beyond the bounds
of the Roman empire. That seat, after the death of Belshazzar, and the expulsion
of the Chaldean priesthood from Babylon by the Medo-Persian kings, was at Pergamos,
where afterwards was one of the seven churches of Asia. * There, in consequence,
for many centuries was "Satan's seat" (Rev 2:13). There, under favour of the deified
** kings of Pergamos, was his favourite abode, there was the worship of Aesculapius,
under the form of the serpent, celebrated with frantic orgies and excesses, that
elsewhere were kept under some measure of restraint.

* BARKER and
AINSWORTH'S Lares and Penates of Cilicia. Barker says, "The defeated Chaldeans
fled to Asia Minor, and fixed their central college at Pergamos." Phrygia, that
was so remarkable for the worship of Cybele and Atys, formed part of the Kingdom
of Pergamos. Mysia also was another, and the Mysians, in the Paschal Chronicle,
are said to be descended from Nimrod. The words are, "Nebrod, the huntsman and
giant--from whence came the Mysians." Lydia, also, from which Livy and Herodotus
say the Etrurians came, formed part of the same kingdom. For the fact that Mysia,
Lydia, and Phrygia were constituent parts of the kingdom of Pergamos, see SMITH's
Classical Dictionary.

** The kings of Pergamos, in whose
dominions the Chaldean Magi found an asylum, were evidently by them, and by
the general voice of Paganism that sympathised with them, put into the vacant
place which Belshazzar and his predecessors had occupied. They were hailed
as the representatives of the old Babylonian god. This is evident from the
statements of Pausanias. First, he quotes the following words from the oracle
of a prophetess called Phaennis, in reference to the Gauls: "But divinity
will still more seriously afflict those that dwell near the sea. However,
in a short time after, Jupiter will send them a defender, the beloved son
of a Jove-nourished bull, who will bring destruction on all the Gauls." Then
on this he comments as follows: "Phaennis, in this oracle, means by the son
of a bull, Attalus, king of Pergamos, whom the oracle of Apollo called Taurokeron,"
or bull-horned. This title given by the Delphian god, proves that Attalus,
in whose dominions the Magi had their seat, had been set up and recognised
in the very character of Bacchus, the Head of the Magi. Thus the vacant seat
of Belshazzar was filled, and the broken chain of the Chaldean succession
renewed.

At first, the Roman Pontiff had
no immediate connection with Pergamos and the hierarchy there; yet, in course
of time, the Pontificate of Rome and the Pontificate of Pergamos came to be
identified. Pergamos itself became part and parcel of the Roman empire, when
Attalus III, the last of its kings, at his death, left by will all his dominions
to the Roman people, BC 133. For some time after the kingdom of Pergamos was
merged in the Roman dominions, there was no one who could set himself openly
and advisedly to lay claim to all the dignity inherent in the old title of the
kings of Pergamos. The original powers even of the Roman Pontiffs seem to have
been by that time abridged, but when Julius Caesar, who had previously been
elected Pontifex Maximus, became also, as Emperor, the supreme civil ruler of
the Romans, then, as head of the Roman state, and head of the Roman religion,
all the powers and functions of the true legitimate Babylonian Pontiff were
supremely vested in him, and he found himself in a position to assert these
powers. Then he seems to have laid claim to the divine dignity of Attalus, as
well as the kingdom that Attalus had bequeathed to the Romans, as centering
in himself; for his well-known watchword, "Venus Genetrix," which meant that
Venus was the mother of the Julian race, appears to have been intended to make
him "The Son" of the great goddess, even as the "Bull-horned" Attalus had been
regarded. *

* The deification
of the emperors that continued in succession from the days of Divus Julius,
or the "Deified Julius," can be traced to no cause so likely as their representing
the "Bull-horned" Attalus both as Pontiff and Sovereign.

Then, on certain occasions, in the
exercise of his high pontifical office, he appeared of course in all the pomp
of the Babylonian costume, as Belshazzar himself might have done, in robes of
scarlet, with the crosier of Nimrod in his hand, wearing the mitre of Dagon
and bearing the keys of Janus and Cybele. *

* That the key
was one of the symbols used in the Mysteries, the reader will find on consulting
TAYLOR'S Note on Orphic Hymn to Pluto, where that divinity is spoken of as "keeper
of the keys." Now the Pontifex, as "Hierophant," was "arrayed in the habit and
adorned with the symbols of the great Creator of the world, of whom in these
Mysteries he was supposed to be the substitute." (MAURICE'S Antiquities) The
Primeval or Creative god was mystically represented as Androgyne, as combining
in his own person both sexes (Ibid.), being therefore both Janus and Cybele
at the same time. In opening up the Mysteries, therefore, of this mysterious
divinity, it was natural that the Pontifex should bear the key of both these
divinities. Janus himself, however, as well as Pluto, was often represented
with more than one key.

Thus did matter continue, as already
stated, even under so-called Christian emperors; who, as a salve to their consciences,
appointed a heathen as their substitute in the performance of the more directly
idolatrous functions of the pontificate (that substitute, however, acting in
their name and by their authority), until the reign of Gratian, who, as shown
by Gibbon, was the first that refused to be arrayed in the idolatrous pontifical
attire, or to act as Pontifex. Now, from all this it is evident that, when Paganism
in the Roman empire was abolished, when the office of Pontifex Maximus was suppressed,
and all the dignitaries of paganism were cast down from their seats of influence
and of power, which they had still been allowed in some measure to retain, that
was not merely the casting down of the Fiery Dragon of Rome, but the casting
down of the Fiery Dragon of Babylon. It was just the enacting over again, in
a symbolical sense, upon the true and sole legitimate successor of Nimrod, what
had taken place upon himself, when the greatness of his downfall gave rise to
the exclamation, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning"!

Notes

That Zoroaster was head of the fire-worshippers,
the following, among other evidence, may prove. Not to mention that the name
Zoroaster is almost a synonym for a fire-worshipper, the testimony of Plutarch
is of weight: "Plutarch acknowledges that Zoroaster among the Chaldeans instituted
the Magi, in imitation of whom the Persians also had their (Magi). * The Arabian
History also relates that Zaradussit, or Zerdusht, did not for the first time
institute, but (only) reform the religion of the Persians and Magi, who had
been divided into many sects."

* The great antiquity
of the institution of the Magi is proved from the statement of Aristotle already
referred to, as preserved in Theopompus, which makes them to have been "more
ancient than the Egyptians," whose antiquity is well known. (Theopompi Fragmenta
in MULLER).

The testimony of Agathias is to
the same effect. He gives it as his opinion that the worship of fire came from
the Chaldeans to the Persians. That the Magi among the Persians were the guardians
of "the sacred and eternal fire" may be assumed from Curtius, who says that
fire was carried before them "on silver altars"; from the statement of Strabo
(Geograph.), that "the Magi kept upon the altar a quantity of ashes and an immortal
fire," and of Herodotus, that "without them, no sacrifice could be offered."
The fire-worship was an essential part of the system of the Persian Magi (WILSON,
Parsee Religion). This fire-worship the Persian Magi did not pretend to have
invented; but their popular story carried the origin of it up to the days of
Hoshang, the father of Tahmurs, who founded Babylon (WILSON)--i.e., the time
of Nimrod. In confirmation of this, we have seen that a fragment of Apollodorus
makes Ninus the head of the fire-worshipper, Layard, quoting this fragment,
supposes Ninus to be different from Zoroaster (Nineveh and its Remains); but
it can be proved, that though many others bore the name of Zoroaster, the lines
of evidence all converge, so as to demonstrate that Ninus and Nimrod and Zoroaster
were one. The legends of Zoroaster show that he was known not only as a Magus,
but as a Warrior (ARNOBIUS). Plato says that Eros Armenius (whom CLERICUS, De
Chaldaeis, states to have been the same as the fourth Zoroaster) died and rose
again after ten days, having been killed in battle; and that what he pretended
to have learned in Hades, he communicated to men in his new life (PLATO, De
Republica). We have seen the death of Nimrod, the original Zoroaster, was not
that of a warrior slain in battle; but yet this legend of the warrior Zoroaster
is entirely in favour of the supposition that the original Zoroaster, the original
Head of the Magi, was not a priest merely, but a warrior-king. Everywhere are
the Zoroastrians, or fire-worshippers, called Guebres or Gabrs. Now, Genesis
10:8 proves that Nimrod was the first of the "Gabrs."

As Zoroaster was head of the fire-worshippers,
so Tammuz was evidently the same. We have seen evidence already that sufficiently
proves the identity of Tammuz and Nimrod; but a few words may still more decisively
prove it, and cast further light on the primitive fire-worship. 1. In the first
place, Tammuz and Adonis are proved to be the same divinity. Jerome, who lived
in Palestine when the rites of Tammuz were observed, up to the very time when
he wrote, expressly identifies Tammuz and Adonis, in his Commentary on Ezekiel,
where the Jewish women are represented as weeping for Tammuz; and the testimony
of Jerome on this subject is universally admitted. Then the mode in which the
rites of Tammuz or Adonis were celebrated in Syria was essentially the same
as the rites of Osiris. The statement of Lucian (De Dea Syria) strikingly shows
this, and Bunsen distinctly admits it. The identity of Osiris and Nimrod has
been largely proved in the body of this work. When, therefore, Tammuz or Adonis
is identified with Osiris, the identification of Tammuz with Nimrod follows
of course. And then this entirely agrees with the language of Bion, in his Lament
for Adonis, where he represents Venus as going in a frenzy of grief, like a
Bacchant, after the death of Adonis, through the woods and valleys, and "calling
upon her Assyrian husband." It equally agrees with the statement of Maimonides,
that when Tammuz was put to death, the grand scene of weeping for that death
was in the temple of Babylon. 2. Now, if Tammuz was Nimrod, the examination
of the meaning of the name confirms the connection of Nimrod with the first
fire-worship. After what has already been advanced, there needs no argument
to show that, as the Chaldeans were the first who introduced the name and power
of kings (SYNCELLUS), and as Nimrod was unquestionably the first of these kings,
and the first, consequently, that bore the title of Moloch, or king, so it was
in honour of him that the "children were made to pass through the fire to Moloch."
But the intention of that passing through the fire was undoubtedly to purify.
The name Tammuz has evidently reference to this, for it signifies "to perfect,"
that is, "to purify" * "by fire"; and if Nimrod was, as the Paschal Chronicle,
and the general voice of antiquity, represent him to have been, the originator
of fire-worship, this name very exactly expresses his character in that respect.

* From tam, "to
perfect," and muz, "to burn." To be "pure in heart" in Scripture is just the
same as to be "perfect in heart." The well-known name Deucalion, as connected
with the flood, seems to be a correlative term of the water-worshippers. Dukh-kaleh
signifies "to purify by washing," from Dikh, "to wash" (CLAVIS STOCKII), and
Khaleh, "to complete," or "perfect." The noun from the latter verb, found in
2 Chronicles 4:21, shows that the root means "to purify," "perfect gold" being
in the Septuagint justly rendered "pure gold." There is a name sometimes applied
to the king of the gods that has some bearing on this subject. That name is
"Akmon." What is the meaning of it? It is evidently just the Chaldee form of
the Hebrew Khmn, "the burner," which becomes Akmon in the same way as the Hebrew
Dem, "blood," in Chaldee becomes "Adem." Hesychius says that Akmon is Kronos,
sub voce "Akmon." In Virgil (Aeneid) we find this name compounded so as to be
an exact synonym for Tammuz, Pyracmon being the name of one of the three famous
Cyclops whom the poet introduces. We have seen that the original Cyclops were
Kronos and his brethren, and deriving the name from "Pur," the Chaldee form
of Bur, "to purify," and "Akmon," it just signifies "The purifying burner."

It is evident, however, from the
Zoroastrian verse, elsewhere quoted, that fire itself was worshipped as Tammuz,
for it is called the "Father that perfected all things." In one respect this
represented fire as the Creative god; but in another, there can be no doubt
that it had reference to the "perfecting" of men by "purifying" them. And especially
it perfected those whom it consumed. This was the very idea that, from time
immemorial until very recently, led so many widows in India to immolate themselves
on the funeral piles of their husbands, the woman who thus burned herself being
counted blessed, because she became Suttee *--i.e., "Pure by burning."

* MOOR'S Pantheon,
"Siva." The epithet for a woman that burns herself is spelled "Sati," but is
pronounced "Suttee," as above.

And this also, no doubt, reconciled
the parents who actually sacrificed their children to Moloch, to the cruel sacrifice,
the belief being cherished that the fire that consumed them also "perfected"
them, and made them meet for eternal happiness. As both the passing through
the fire, and the burning in the fire, were essential rites in the worship of
Moloch or Nimrod, this is an argument that Nimrod was Tammuz. As the priest
and representative of the perfecting or purifying fire, it was he that carried
on the work of perfecting or purifying by fire, and so he was called by its
name.

When we turn to the legends of India,
we find evidence to the very same effect as that which we have seen with regard
to Zoroaster and Tammuz as head of the fire-worshippers. The fifth head of Brahma,
that was cut off for inflicting distress on the three worlds, by the "effulgence
of its dazzling beams," referred to in the text of this work, identifies itself
with Nimrod. The fact that that fifth head was represented as having read the
Vedas, or sacred books produced by the other four heads, shows, I think, a succession.
*

* The Indian
Vedas that now exist do not seem to be of very great antiquity as written documents;
but the legend goes much further back than anything that took place in India.
The antiquity of writing seems to be very great, but whether or not there was
any written religious document in Nimrod's day, a Veda there must have been;
for what is the meaning of the word "Veda"? It is evidently just the same as
the Anglo-Saxon Edda with the digamma prefixed, and both alike evidently come
from "Ed" a "Testimony," a "Religious Record," or "confession of Faith." Such
a "Record" or "Confession," either "oral" or "written," must have existed from
the beginning.

Now, coming down from Noah, what
would that succession be? We have evidence from Berosus, that, in the days of
Belus--that is, Nimrod--the custom of making representations like that of two-headed
Janus, had begun. Assume, then, that Noah, as having lived in two worlds, has
his two heads. Ham is the third, Cush the fourth, and Nimrod is, of course,
the fifth. And this fifth head was cut off for doing the very thing for which
Nimrod actually was cut off. I suspect that this Indian myth is the key to open
up the meaning of a statement of Plutarch, which, according to the terms of
it, as it stands, is visibly absurd. It is as follows: Plutarch (in the fourth
book of his Symposiaca) says that "the Egyptians were of the opinion that darkness
was prior to light, and that the latter [viz. light] was produced from mice,
in the fifth generation, at the time of the new moon." In India, we find that
"a new moon" was produced in a different sense from the ordinary meaning of
that term, and that the production of that new moon was not only important in
Indian mythology, but evidently agreed in time with the period when the fifth
head of Brahma scorched the world with its insufferable splendour. The account
of its production runs thus: that the gods and mankind were entirely discontented
with the moon which they had got, "Because it gave no light," and besides the
plants were poor and the fruits of no use, and that therefore they churned the
White sea [or, as it is commonly expressed, "they churned the ocean"], when
all things were mingled--i.e., were thrown into confusion, and that then a new
moon, with a new regent, was appointed, which brought in an entirely new system
of things (Asiatic Researches). From MAURICE's Indian Antiquities, we learn
that at this very time of the churning of the ocean, the earth was set on fire,
and a great conflagration was the result. But the name of the moon in India
is Soma, or Som (for the final a is only a breathing, and the word is found
in the name of the famous temple of Somnaut, which name signifies "Lord of the
Moon"), and the moon in India is male. As this transaction is symbolical, the
question naturally arises, who could be meant by the moon, or regent of the
moon, who was cast off in the fifth generation of the world? The name Som shows
at once who he must have been. Som is just the name of Shem; for Shem's name
comes from Shom, "to appoint," and is legitimately represented either by the
name Som, or Sem, as it is in Greek; and it was precisely to get rid of Shem
(either after his father's death, or when the infirmities of old age were coming
upon him) as the great instructor of the world, that is, as the great diffuser
of spiritual light, that in the fifth generation the world was thrown into confusion
and the earth set on fire. The propriety of Shem's being compared to the moon
will appear if we consider the way in which his father Noah was evidently symbolised.
The head of a family is divinely compared to the sun, as in the dream of Joseph
(Gen 37:9), and it may be easily conceived how Noah would, by his posterity
in general, be looked up to as occupying the paramount place as the Sun of the
world; and accordingly Bryant, Davies, Faber, and others, have agreed in recognising
Noah as so symbolised by Paganism. When, however, his younger son--for Shem
was younger than Japhet--(Gen 10:21) was substituted for his father, to whom
the world had looked up in comparison of the "greater light," Shem would naturally,
especially by those who disliked him and rebelled against him, be compared to
"the lesser light," or the moon. *

* "As to the
kingdom, the Oriental Oneirocritics, jointly say, that the sun is the symbol
of the king, and the moon of the next to him in power." This sentence extracted
from DAUBUZ's Symbolical Dictionary, illustrated with judicious notes by my
learned friend, the Rev. A. Forbes, London, shows that the conclusion to which
I had come before seeing it, in regard to the symbolical meaning of the moon,
is entirely in harmony with Oriental modes of thinking.

Now, the production of light by
mice at this period, comes in exactly to confirm this deduction. A mouse in
Chaldee is "Aakbar"; and Gheber, or Kheber, in Arabic, Turkish, and some of
the other eastern dialects, becomes "Akbar," as in the well-known Moslem saying,
"Allar Akbar," "God is Great." So that the whole statement of Plutarch, when
stripped of its nonsensical garb, just amounts to this, that light was produced
by the Guebres or fire-worshippers, when Nimrod was set up in opposition to
Shem, as the representative of Noah, and the great enlightener of the world.

The identity of Phaethon and Nimrod
has much to support it besides the prima facie evidence arising from the statement
that Phaethon was an Ethiopian or Cushite, and the resemblance of his fate,
in being cast down from heaven while driving the chariot of the sun, as "the
child of the Sun," to the casting down of Molk-Gheber, whose very name, as the
god of fire, identifies him with Nimrod. 1. Phaethon is said by Apollodorus
to have been the son of Tithonus; but if the meaning of the name Tithonus be
examined, it will be evident that he was Tithonus himself. Tithonus was the
husband of Aurora (DYMOCK). In the physical sense, as we have already seen,
Aur-ora signifies "The awakener of the light"; to correspond with this Tithonus
signifies "The kindler of light," or "setter on fire." *

* From Tzet or
Tzit, "to kindle," or "set on fire," which in Chaldee becomes Tit, and Thon,
"to give."

Now "Phaethon, the son of Tithonus,"
is in Chaldee "Phaethon Bar Tithon." But this also signifies "Phaethon, the
son that set on fire." Assuming, then, the identity of Phaethon and Tithonus,
this goes far to identify Phaethon with Nimrod; for Homer, as we have seen (Odyssey),
mentions the marriage of Aurora with Orion, the mighty Hunter, whose identity
with Nimrod is established. Then the name of the celebrated son that sprang
from the union between Aurora and Tithonus, shows that Tithonus, in his original
character, must have been indeed the same as "the mighty hunter" of Scripture,
for the name of that son was Memnon (MARTIAL and OVID, Metam.), which signifies
"The son of the spotted one," * thereby identifying the father with Nimrod,
whose emblem was the spotted leopard's skin.

* From Mem or
Mom, "spotted," and Non, "a son."

As Ninus or Nimrod, was worshipped
as the son of his own wife, and that wife Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, we
see how exact is the reference to Phaethon, when Isaiah, speaking of the King
of Babylon, who was his representative, says, "How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning" (Isa 14:12). The marriage of Orion with Aurora;
in other words, his setting up as "The kindler of light," or becoming the "author
of fire-worship," is said by Homer to have been the cause of his death, he having
in consequence perished under the wrath of the gods. 2. That Phaethon was currently
represented as the son of Aurora, the common story, as related by Ovid, sufficiently
proves. While Phaethon claimed to be the son of Phoebus, or the sun, he was
reproached with being only the son of Merops--i.e., of the mortal husband of
his mother Clymene (OVID, Metam.). The story implies that that mother gave herself
out to be Aurora, not in the physical sense of that term, but in its mystical
sense; as "The woman pregnant with light"; and, consequently, her son was held
up as the great "Light-bringer" who was to enlighten the world,--"Lucifer, the
son of the morning," who was the pretended enlightener of the souls of men.
The name Lucifer, in Isaiah, is the very word from which Eleleus, one of the
names of Bacchus, evidently comes. It comes from "Helel," which signifies "to
irradiate" or "to bring light," and is equivalent to the name Tithon. Now we
have evidence that Lucifer, the son of Aurora, or the morning, was worshipped
in the very same character as Nimrod, when he appeared in his new character
as a little child.

This Phaethon, or Lucifer, who was
cast down is further proved to be Janus; for Janus is called "Pater Matutinus"
(HORACE); and the meaning of this name will appear in one of its aspects when
the meaning of the name of the Dea Matuta is ascertained. Dea Matuta signifies
"The kindling or Light-bringing goddess," * and accordingly, by Priscian, she
is identified with Aurora.

* Matuta comes
from the same word as Tithonus--i.e., Tzet, Tzit, or Tzut, which in Chaldee
becomes Tet, Tit, or Tut, "to light" or "set on fire." From Tit, "to set on
fire," comes the Latin Titio, "a firebrand"; and from Tut, with the formative
M prefixed, comes Matuta--just as from Nasseh, "to forget," with the same formative
prefixed, comes Manasseh, "forgetting," the name of the eldest son of Joseph
(Gen 41:51). The root of this verb is commonly given as "Itzt"; but see BAKER'S
Lexicon, where it is also given as "Tzt." It is evidently from this root that
the Sanscrit "Suttee" already referred to comes.

Matutinus is evidently just the
correlate of Matuta, goddess of the morning; Janus, therefore, as Matutinus,
is "Lucifer, son of the morning." But further, Matuta is identified with Ino,
after she had plunged into the sea, and had, along with her son Melikerta, been
changed into a sea-divinity. Consequently her son Melikerta, "king of the walled
city," is the same as Janus Matutinus, or Lucifer, Phaethon, or Nimrod.

There is still another link by which
Melikerta, the sea-divinity, or Janus Matutinus, is identified with the primitive
god of the fire-worshippers. The most common name of Ino, or Matuta, after she
had passed through the waters, was Leukothoe (OVID, Metam.). Now, Leukothoe
or Leukothea has a double meaning, as it is derived either from "Lukhoth," which
signifies "to light," or "set on fire," or from Lukoth "to glean." In the Maltese
medal, the ear of corn, at the side of the goddess, which is more commonly held
in her hand, while really referring in its hidden meaning to her being the Mother
of Bar, "the son," to the uninitiated exhibits her as Spicilega, or "The Gleaner,"--"the
popular name," says Hyde, "for the female with the ear of wheat represented
in the constellation Virgo." In Bryant, Cybele is represented with two or three
ears of corn in her hand; for as there were three peculiarly distinguished Bacchuses,
there were consequently as many "Bars," and she might therefore be represented
with one, two, or three ears in her hand. But to revert to the Maltese medal
just referred to, the flames coming out of the head of Lukothea, the "Gleaner,"
show that, though she has passed through the waters, she is still Lukhothea,
"the Burner," or "Light-giver." And the rays around the mitre of the god on
the reverse entirely agree with the character of that god as Eleleus, or Phaethon--in
other words, as "The Shining Bar." Now, this "Shining Bar," as Melikerta, "king
of the walled city," occupies the very place of "Ala-Mahozim," whose representative
the Pope is elsewhere proved to be. But he is equally the sea-divinity, who
in that capacity wears the mitre of Dagon. The fish-head mitre which the Pope
wears shows that, in this character also, as the "Beast from the sea," he is
the unquestionable representative of Melikerta.

The passage of Ammianus Marcellinus,
that speaks of that standard, calls it "purpureum signum draconis." On this
may be raised the question, Has the epithet purpureum, as describing the colour
of the dragon, any reference to fire? The following extract from Salverte may
cast some light upon it: "The dragon figured among the military ensigns of the
Assyrians. Cyrus caused it to be adopted by the Persians and Medes. Under the
Roman emperors, and under the emperors of Byzantium, each cohort or centuria
bore for an ensign a dragon." There is no doubt that the dragon or serpent standard
of the Assyrians and Persians had reference to fire-worship, the worship of
fire and the serpent being mixed up together in both these countries. As the
Romans, therefore, borrowed these standards evidently from these sources, it
is to be presumed that they viewed them in the very same light as those from
whom they borrowed them, especially as that light was so exactly in harmony
with their own system of fire-worship. The epithet purpureus or "purple" does
not indeed naturally convey the idea of fire-colour to us. But it does convey
the idea of red; and red in one shade or another, among idolatrous nations,
has almost with one consent been used to represent fire. The Egyptians (BUNSEN),
the Hindoos (MOOR'S Pantheon, "Brahma"), the Assyrians (LAYARD'S Nineveh), all
represented fire by red. The Persians evidently did the same, for when Quintus
Curtius describes the Magi as following "the sacred and eternal fire," he describes
the 365 youths, who formed the train of these Magi, as clad in "scarlet garments,"
the colour of these garments, no doubt, having reference to the fire whose ministers
they were. Puniceus is equivalent to purpureus, for it was in Phenicia [six]
that the purpura, or purple-fish, was originally found. The colour derived from
that purple-fish was scarlet, and it is the very name of that Phoenician purple-fish,
"arguna," that is used in Daniel 5:16 and 19, where it is said that he that
should interpret the handwriting on the wall should "be clothed in scarlet."
The Tyrians had the art of making true purples, as well as scarlet; and there
seems no doubt that purpureus is frequently used in the ordinary sense attached
to our word purple. But the original meaning of the epithet is scarlet; and
as bright scarlet colour is a natural colour to represent fire, so we have reason
to believe that that colour, when used for robes of state among the Tyrians,
had special reference to fire; for the Tyrian Hercules, who was regarded as
the inventor of purple (BRYANT), was regarded as "King of Fire," (NONNUS, Dionysiaca).
Now, when we find that the purpura of Tyre produced the scarlet colour which
naturally represented fire, and that puniceus, which is equivalent to purpureus,
is evidently used for scarlet, there is nothing that forbids us to understand
purpureus in the same sense here, but rather requires it. But even though it
were admitted that the tinge was deeper, and purpureus meant the true purple,
as red, of which it is a shade, is the established colour of fire, and as the
serpent was the universally acknowledged symbol of fire-worship, the probability
is strong that the use of a red dragon as the Imperial standard of Rome was
designed as an emblem of that system of fire-worship on which the safety of
the empire was believed so vitally to hinge.